mouth, already flavoured like mud after what seemed an age without even a sip of water, went fully dry. He glanced over his shoulder at the four heavy haversacks, now zipped and buckled tight on the rear seat of his Peugeot. ‘About two hundred … I think.’
There was a protracted silence.
‘Two hundred?’ came the eventual response. ‘I thought we’d agreed three at the very least?’
‘Look … I was on my own, OK? The staff were due within the next hour. I got as much as I could in the time available. Surely you understand that? It’s not like the Dunholme branch is crammed with cash anyway.’
‘I suppose it’ll have to do.’ The tone was deeply grudging. ‘But I’m not happy with you, Brian. I’m not happy at all.’
The line went dead.
‘Wait, please!’ Kelso shouted. ‘Is Justine all right?’
Only the dial tone purred back at him.
Just about managing to suppress the cry of emotional agony set to burst its way out of him like a piece of actual anatomy, he dropped the phone onto the passenger seat next to him, and slumped forward, his forehead striking the steering wheel.
Justine, whom he’d been married to for the last twelve years, had never hurt anyone in her life. She was good-natured, kind-hearted; she rarely nagged him or got crotchety, and God knows, there were times when he’d deserved that from her. Even though she’d been so grief-stricken to learn that she couldn’t have children, she’d refused to let it get her down, determinedly continuing with life, filling what might otherwise have been a yawning desolation for both of them with her bubbly personality and busy demeanour, looking after herself to the nth degree, looking after him, looking after their detached, four-bedroom house, ensuring that it was permanently like a new pin.
And now those bastards had … had …
Kelso shook his head, hot salt-tears coursing down his cheeks as he struggled to negotiate the icy surface of Market Rasen Road. Whatever the outcome today, he knew that he’d never forget the image now branded into his mind’s eye: of his lovely soulmate, stripped naked and bound X-shaped with pairs of her own tights to the lower banisters of their staircase, her head drooped, her chestnut hair unbound and hanging in long, ratty hanks, her slim, marble-white body mottled with bruises, streaked with blood.
‘You have to understand,’ the older one had said some time around three that morning, by which point Kelso sat stiff and sweat-soaked in the dining room chair they’d brought into the hall and tied him to with the hoover flex, so that he could watch. ‘We couldn’t do any of this to you. Because just before dawn, you’ve got to go down to that bank you manage with your best suit on and your keys in your pocket as if everything is normal. A bit earlier than usual of course, but not so much … and not in any kind of state that’ll make anyone who sees you suspicious. But even so, we had to make it absolutely clear what you’ll be facing if you try to fuck us over. You see, my young pal, here … he’s going to tail you down to the bank. And he’s going to park across the road till you’ve gone inside. Now, up until that moment I reckon it’s safe to say we’ll have full control over you. But we’re under no illusions: once you’re in there, things are different. There’ll be nothing to stop you picking the nearest phone up and calling the filth. Except the knowledge that we’ve still got your missus. And that nasty little question that’ll be niggling away in the back of your head … if that was the way they treated her when I hadn’t given them any grief, what in Christ’s name will it be like if I try to double-cross them?’
Kelso shuddered at the memory of those cold, reptilian eyes fixed on him from the two slits in the bright green balaclava. It was too easy to imagine that there was nothing human behind them.
‘So … you won’t try anything stupid, will you?’
‘I swear it,’ the captive had said. ‘Please … just don’t hurt her any more.’
‘You know … I actually think I trust you, Brian.’ This might have sounded more convincing had the older one’s pistol not been jammed so hard into Kelso’s right temple that his entire head was crooked painfully to the left. ‘Just don’t give me any fucking reason to regret that judgement, yeah? Because if you do, what happens after that will be un-fucking-imaginable.’
By the time he was on Welton Road, it was past eight, and the veils of frozen fog were thinning and clearing. The two hoodlums would like that, because, as they’d continually reminded him, they’d be watching his progress and keeping a sharp lookout for any anomalies, like so-called members of the public displaying unusual interest in his activities or maybe a helicopter hovering in the near distance. Not that there was any possibility of this, because Kelso, though he’d been tempted on entering the bank, had eventually made no phone call. What would have been the point? In the short time available before the villains became suspicious, the police wouldn’t have been able to mount any kind of response other than sending uniformed officers scrambling to the house and the bank – which would have achieved nothing, because the older villain was unlikely to still be at the former location, and though the younger one had tailed Kelso down here, he’d vanished after that, presumably secreting himself somewhere nearby, to watch. Both of them would have been able to get away relatively easily, maybe taking Justine with them, which would have been the end for her.
So, Kelso had complied.
Naturally he’d complied.
But he still had no idea what to expect next.
As he approached the junction with Horncastle Lane, he saw the bus stop in question, though nobody was waiting there. Rush hour was now upon them, as indicated by the increasingly heavy traffic, but this was a rural area, and the few commuters living in the villages round here were more likely to travel by car.
Before Kelso had set out that morning, they’d searched his vehicle for a tracker, and had even advised him that, when he got to the handover site, he’d be searched again, just in case he’d somehow managed to fit a wire and had been feeding covert info to the police all along. If that was the case, he’d never see his wife again, or anything in fact, because he’d be shot on the spot. The older one’s preferred method, or so he’d boasted, was a slug through the back of the neck.
Kelso would have laughed had the predicament not been so critical. A tracker? A hidden wire? They clearly overestimated the facilities available to modern-day bank managers, but the implicit message was clear: they weren’t taking any chances and no untoward behaviour on his part would be tolerated even for a second.
Trying not to think about that, he pulled into the layby opposite the bus stop, switched off his engine and sat waiting. As the seconds ticked by, he grew increasingly nervous.
He wasn’t on a time clock here, but he’d assumed that they wouldn’t want this thing dragged out, and that the longer it took, the twitchier and more dangerous they’d become. But what was supposed to happen? Surely someone should have shown up by now? The younger one who’d followed him to the bank, maybe – though perhaps he now had another role to play in the scheme. With the engine off, the interior of the car was cooling fast. Kelso pulled on his leather driving-gloves and zipped his anorak over his dishevelled suit. He’d tried to dress the part this morning, but it had been impossible to do a proper job.
Outside, a police traffic patrol eased past in the sluggish flow of vehicles. Kelso shrank down, only just resisting the urge to duck out of sight altogether, gabbling prayers that they wouldn’t swing around and park behind him to see what the trouble was. If one of the
